and i had the best day with you, today.

So my best friend Delany invites me to go rock-climbing at Enchanted Rock with her, her brother, her sister, and their friends. I figured, "Oh, I've climbed Enchanted Rock before. It'll be nice. Relaxing, even."
What she failed to tell me was that we would also be conquering the caves that run along the northeast side of the mountain. These caves, my friends, are NOT normal caves. The people in my group that had climbed them before warned me that if I was closterphobic, I should really re-think attempting the climb. Up until today, I didn't think I was closterphobic in the least. Boy, was I wrong...
So we get inside the teeny-tiny cave opening. It's pitch black, cold, damp, and there's unknown bugs and other creatures EVERYWHERE. As soon as I got all the way in, I wanted to turn around and go back, but I couldn't, because once you get in, the only way out is to climb the entire thing and come through the other side. I started panicking and all I could think about was how scary the rest of the climb was going to be. The cave was so narrow, low-ceilinged, sloped, and slippery that every step was treacherous. Since there was no light, we had to feel our way through the cave with our feet, and if you couldn't find a foothold, you'd better hope that there was someone strong behind you to help you out. There was one section where the only thing there was to crawl on was a piece of rock that was so sloped it was almost straight up in the air, and it was wet and completley flat with no ledges, which made it almost impossible to get across. While crossing this, my foot slipped and I was sliding a pit that was deeper than I am tall, and a guy in our group grabbed my wrist and pull me back up. I scraped almost every piece of skin on the front of my body, but I'd never been so grateful to anyone in my life!
Most of the cave was just one tunnel, but about 3/4 of the way down it split into two separate sections. If you continued going straight, it would be the same type of climbing we had been doing the whole time. If you turned left, you would enter what was called "The Coffin Crawl" or "The Death Crawl". You basically had to lie flat on your back and slide your way, in the dark, through a very narrow tunnel of two rocks. Being with daredevil Delany, we chose to do the coffin passage, of course. There was one section of it that was so tight, my nose scraped against the ceiling, and my entire back was scratched, matching my front from earlier. I felt like I was about to pass out, throw up, scream, cry, and die all at the same time, and it was the most terrifying thing I have ever done in my entire life. Once, I put my hand on the wall to grip something, and it happened to be placed exactly on top of a Daddylonglegs nest. The disgusting spiders danced all up my arm and I literally had to choke myself to keep from screaming. When we finally got out, I had never before been so happy to see sunlight. It was by far the most challenging, difficult, and dangerous thing I'd ever done, but I'm so glad I did it. I feel so unbelievably proud of myself, prouder than I've ever felt before, and now I am able to say that I braved the caves and conquered them. I am so glad I went with Delany, because today was a life-changing moment!